You know, as I'm going through Greenlights, especially
with your father, "What a complex guy,"
I thought.
Because it seems almost like violence in some form
was a love language for him.
You tell that story of your brother having the rite
of passage when your father had taken him to this place
and wanted him to steal something and your brother
didn't wanna do it, and so your brother and he get into
this knockdown drag-out, and the moment your brother
hits him with a 2x4 and he's passed out and your brother's
like "Oh, Dad, Dad, Dad," and then when he comes to...
"That's my boy."
[laughs] He thinks that--
"That's my"--crying, weeping tears, going, "That's my boy.
Thank you." And they were best friends from that day on.
Best friends. My dad never -challenged him morally,
philosophically, never talked to him as a younger man,
a son, or a subservient ever again in his life.
And the same thing happened to you.
They were best friends.
Same thing happened to you in a rite of passage where you had
stolen a pizza one night-- not stolen the pizza, but yeah.
Yeah.
You had an incident with a pizza.
I stole it.
Okay. You'd had an incident about a pizza, came home,
and your father asked you about the pizza, you lied about it,
and tell us about that moment.
Well, I tried to, you know... note to children out there:
when you've done something wrong and you come home
and your parents go, "So, um, did you pay for that pizza?"
If you didn't pay for it, it means they know
you didn't, okay?
Yes.
So I tried to weasel out of it and go, "Well, I mean, I think.
I mean, we"... and this-- the more I was groveling,
the more I was digging myself a hole, the more my father was
getting angry and almost feeling like, "What have I done wrong?
I'm giving you a chance, son, to tell me you stole it."
I think in his mind, he's like, "I've stole plenty of pizzas
when I was a kid. Just tell me." And I didn't have the
courage to tell him. And soon as I said, "Well, no, I mean,
I thought"-- he gave me a backhand,
and one that I had earned. And he sat there and he's like,
"What am I supposed to do, son? What am I supposed to do?
Just tell me. Be man enough to just tell me." And if I
would've told him, "Hey, Dad, yeah, we stole a pizza.
Geez, I didn't know we'd ge caught," he'd have been like,
"Gosh damnit. Now, son, what'd I teach you?
You shouldn't do that. And then, damnit, if you're gonna do it,
get away with it better."
[laughs]
But I got my rite of passage later in life with him.
Yes, that night over the bar, having-- yeah, punching out
a guy in the moment and... Who had put his hand on my dad.
Yes.
Yeah.
And coming out of it, your dad said, "That's my boy,"
in so many words.
He basically pulled me off the guy and said,
"That's enough, son. That's enough." And then I remember
him calling his friends and, you know, saying,
"Hey, the youngest one" --is what he called me.
The youngest one. Matthew. I was the mama's boy-- "
"he's gonna be okay. He's gonna be okay.
I mean, he's got
a bit of a berserker switch, but he's gonna be okay."
And that was, you know... for him, yeah,
it was initiations and rites of passage. And, you know, he grew
up a different generation. He was a physical man, as you
read in the book. Those hands that could hurt were also those
hands that healed, from birds to my mother to his children,
you know?
Well, you just mentioned being a mama's boy, a self-proclaimed
mama's boy. You write about spending most of your time with
your mother growing up because your dad was often on the road,
and how do you think that shaped you?
Hmm. Well, Mama and I were good buddies. I mean, she was my
kindergarten teacher, she was a seventh grade teacher, she was
my substitute teacher along the way, we would ride to school
together on a bike and we'd and we'd mimic that Froot Loop
commercial with Toucan Sam. "Right behind you, baby.
Right behind you, baby." And Dad wasn't gone for long
periods of time. He would just be on the road travelling
through Texas peddling pipe, selling pipe, trying to get
accounts. He was not my little league coach or my soccer coach
or football coach like he was maybe for my older brothers,
but I understood. I mean, we had moved there... Longview was
a fast-growing place, the oil business was good, he was busy,
and so I spent a lot of time with Mom. It wasn't like Dad
wasn't in my life. I just didn't have him in my daily life like
maybe my big brothers did.